Re:“A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming
by JumpCrisscross on Wednesday November 07, 2018 @11:31AM
(#18400205)
> I don’t think voting by app is inherently a “horrifically bad idea”
If a voter can cast their vote from their phone, anyone else can.
The strength of paper-based voting is in its cost and complexity: the number of confederates required to tamper with an election is prohibitively large. With app-based voting comes the risk of a large number of compromised phones tampering with elections.
The security downsides simply don't make sense next to mailed-in ballots, which capture the security (and accessibility) of paper ballots with the convenience of voting from home. The only upside of app-based voting is cost, which is a ridiculous factor to strongly optimize for when it comes to something as important as elections.
If a voter can cast their vote from their phone, anyone else can.
The strength of paper-based voting is in its cost and complexity: the number of confederates required to tamper with an election is prohibitively large. With app-based voting comes the risk of a large number of compromised phones tampering with elections.
The security downsides simply don't make sense next to mailed-in ballots, which capture the security (and accessibility) of paper ballots with the convenience of voting from home. The only upside of app-based voting is cost, which is a ridiculous factor to strongly optimize for when it comes to something as important as elections.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...